


Take Me Home

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Post-Narada, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:10:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I think this may have been my very first Kirk/McCoy & ST: AOS fic, although I posted the Shakespeare-themed series one first.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> I think this may have been my very first Kirk/McCoy & ST: AOS fic, although I posted the Shakespeare-themed series one first.

More prompt filling at [](http://stxi-sinfest.livejournal.com/profile)[**stxi_sinfest**](http://stxi-sinfest.livejournal.com/) 4, for Semisonic's "[Closing Time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERg8kBFhXao)."  Original prompt and fill [here](http://community.livejournal.com/stxi_sinfest/1437.html?thread=123805#t123805).

\--

It’s not supposed to be like this. They’re supposed to be fucking heroes. Hell, they are fucking heroes—but what’s the damned point if they’re the only ones who survived to tell the tale? They’re making the best of it, though.

McCoy drains the last of the bottle into his shot glass while Jim’s not looking, too busy bidding good night to Spock and Uhura. Better him than McCoy—the doctor just barely avoided buying the Vulcan a drink, then poisoning it. And he likes Uhura too much to kill her boyfriend in front of her. He doesn’t even know why the half-blooded green bastard came—he’s going back to New Vulcan.

It’s been a long night. Graduation, commendation, promotion, assignments all announced today in a ceremony even more funereal than the funerals, what should be celebration just a small group in a huge room that should be full of three times their number. Like everything related to Jim, everyone just somehow knew there was a get together tonight, and no one felt like letting their family take them out to some fancy dinner—or they did it early and came along before it got too late.

The whole bar is packed with _Enterprise’s_ crew and the other survivors who are out of the hospital—and it’s not a damned party. Instead, it’s drunken, sad clusters of classmates remembering together, no brass more senior than Jim, who’s been wandering from group to group—McCoy occasionally joining, sometimes making his own way amongst people he’s going to get to know very well, very soon. It’s like Jim’s the ringmaster of an anti-circus right about now, because no one’s doing tricks, singing songs, doing a high wire act—and the only lions being tamed are the ones at the bottoms of bottles.

McCoy gets up as three particularly wasted kids start talking about who’s going to drive home, takes all their keys, calls a cab, shoves them into it—and turns to see Jim doing the same. He quirks a half-smile at the doctor—a sad one, but a smile all the same. It’s been a weird night—a room full of people being lonely and grieving together. It hurts, but it’s a better finish and start than some brass-hat sendoff, this informal gathering Jim’s managed to throw. Brotherhood—sisterhood—personhood. All that togetherness stuff McCoy usually leaves to the shrinks.

They get back inside—Jim returns to the table, frowns at the empty bottle, and looks at the chrono over the bar. Sheila, the bartender, shakes her head, Andorian antennae waggling with the motion—it’s almost closing time, and while she’s made a mint on this crowd, McCoy’s sure she won’t risk a license citation even if Jim bats pretty eyes and asks nicely.

Not that it matters—people have paired off, gone from large groups to small, and whether Jim had a plan mapped out or not, it seems like pretty much everyone’s found someone to go home with—to not be alone with, tonight when it hurts more than usual to be a glorious hero. Shiny medals on dress uniforms won’t bring their friends back. It’ll be better, later, when they’re all up in space, all working, all earning that title—for tonight, though, they’re between homes. An Academy they’ve outgrown, lost the innocence for—and a Starship they don’t yet inhabit, can’t yet spill into and fill up with laughter and work and new friendships that won’t take the place of the people they’ve lost, but will at least be something new to slot alongside the empty they all feel right about now.

They feel at least on the cusp of that, though— _Enterprise_ is more real, now, something to look forward to. Jim’s spent the whole night introducing people by their department assignments and upcoming projects—seems like he’s already got the first two months’ work already planned, at least for the routine divisions—and it’s got people looking forward, not backward, as they leave in small clusters.

McCoy finishes the rest of his whiskey and his beer chaser—warm, but still alcoholic, the longer his buzz lasts, the better—then shifts his attention to shoving people in cabs, making sure everyone’s sober or got someone to make sure they get home.

When he reenters the bar, not long after Jim shoves a few Security ensigns into a cab, he sees Jim settling up at the bar, palming his credits chit over the bill after some murmured conversation about how much to include as the tip. It’s done before McCoy reaches him.

“Damnit, Jim, you didn’t just pay for that out of your pocket?” McCoy chides. He’d—foolishly, it seemed—thought Jim had gotten the Admiralty to foot the bill, since the whole night had been on one tab.

Jim shrugs, making a face. He's not nearly drunk enough for all the shit he's had to put up with. “They gave me a damned bonus, Bones. I wasn’t going to keep it.”

McCoy gets ready to splutter, then decides not to. This whole thing is obscene—well, except Jim being Captain, he deserves it, plain and simple-- and he can see Jim not wanting any reward coming with the culmination of all his natal events—he’d want to blow every last dime he would feel he hadn’t earned because some psychopathic Romulan with a twisted idea of fate hung around long enough for the son of the man he killed to kill him. It’s a circle—a mathematical nullity, and Jim wouldn’t want anything left over once it was done.

“Here. On the house,” Sheila says, interrupting, sliding two last beers over the bar a minute before the clock strikes closing time.

The two men lean onto the stools lining the bar—an old-fashioned, wood-furnished dive of the pool-table, darts, and no frou-frou drink variety the two of them used to frequent—and drink their beers measuredly.

“When’d we turn into Mom and Dad, shoving the kids into cabs?” McCoy murmurs, looking straight ahead, not at Jim.

“S’alright, I always wanted nine hundred kids” Jim says, a tired sigh following as he rubs his hand over his face, McCoy’s eyes drawn by the motion. He’s only a little bit flushed with a buzz-- now that the polite, social smile Jim wears among people he didn’t know well is gone, he looks damned exhausted—not an attractive look, even on him. Of unconscious accord, McCoy’s near-side hand snakes out to rub the kid’s neck, half-roughly, half-gently, and Jim’s eyes close for a second before they blink open again and Jim ducks away from McCoy’s watching eyes, slugging the rest of his beer.

The doctor does the same, then wanders back to their table—so long abandoned, and gathers up their jackets. His old green canvas one—Jim’s beat-up leather—and Jim slips the garment on tiredly, shrugging and rolling his shoulders once he’s got it all the way on.

The lights come up to full blare as they’re halfway to the exit, Sheila’s goodnight following them as they both wave without looking back over their shoulders.

“Come on,” he says, slinging his arm over Jim’s shoulder, pulling the younger man into his side. They make the short walk back to the officers’ quarters in silence, their belongings efficiently gathered and moved yesterday by some poor shmuck of a Yeoman—not that either of them has anything more than can fit in a miniscule dorm room, so at least the poor bastard didn’t have to work too hard, except for all of Jim’s damned paper books.

Jim keys it open, the lock opening to his thumb print-- though McCoy’s would have worked just as well-- and they make their way in, not bothering with lights on the trip to the bedroom. Jim, of course, dumps his stuff in a pile, his boots kicked haphazard, and McCoy’s tired enough to worry about keeping things tidy tomorrow.

“I got at least six shots spilled on me,” Jim says matter of factly. “I smell like a twenty-first birthday,” he adds, then pads his bare-assed way to the shower.

McCoy needs no more invitation than that tempting sight, and shucks the rest of his clothes hurriedly, joining Jim under the spray just at it starts. The both of them just revel in the hot water at first—it’s a luxury they won’t often afford once they’re in space.

It’s not quite idle, the washing up and what happens next. Maybe unplanned, but McCoy doesn’t need a plan when he’s got the herb-scented soap slicking Jim’s skin under his hands and Jim’s cock stiffening from the attention.

“Mom and Dad, hunh?” McCoy asks, tonguing that spot in the well of Jim’s collarbone that makes him pant more than a little. “You going to pawn Chekov off on me when you don’t feel like telling him no about something, tell him “Go ask your father?” Because I’m not putting up with those puppy dog eyes of his any more than I put up with yours.”

“I’m the Captain, I get to be the Dad,” Jim answers, mock-pouting, his own hands busy doing marvelous things to McCoy’s balls, the water slicking and speeding the slide of fingers and palms over wet skin.

Jim’s gasp-- the slap of his hands on the wall of the shower—comes as the almost instantaneous echo of McCoy’s fingers breaching his body and he grabs and pushes Jim into the wall—slow, just one to start. He drawls “Hate to tell you this, princess, but usually the one taking the cock is the Mommy, and usually the one dishing it out is the mean, irascible Papa.”

He suppresses a groan as the tight clench of Jim’s heat on his fingers urges him to speed this part up, get on to the best part, the part where Jim always goes still for just a few seconds, black pupils eclipsing summer-sky iris, when McCoy first takes full seat in his body and fights off—like he does now, he can’t wait any longer-- sucks in his breath, bites his lip, and yet can’t not watch the arch of that spine, the curl of long fingers on tile, the widening eyes—he fights off the urge to explode right away.

Jim laughs after that moment of stillness, hitching back that last inch until—ah, fuck, yes—McCoy’s all the way in. “Irascible, hunh?”

“Grouchy,” he says after a moment, sliding back just a bit before a shallow thrust in makes Jim’s breath hitch while McCoy clenches his own ass, still fighting the urge not to come.

“Grumpy,” Jim adds, and McCoy growls, because he’s a doctor, not a thesaurus, and words aren’t the thing he wants to play with tonight. He backs off, returns more deeply this time, fingernails digging into lean, narrow hips, and Jim grunts at the end of the thrust, pushing back with arms braced on the wall.

“All of them looking at you,” McCoy says, licking and sucking his way over Jim’s shoulder. “Not knowing what they want, needing you to make ‘em feel better.”

Jim shuts his eyes, grits his jaw—he doesn’t want the reminder, because if he’s got one blind spot, Jim Kirk, it’s that he doesn’t believe anything he does is ever enough.

“You did, Jimmy,” he says then—“they were all done with their cryin’ and drinking too much before the evening was over. If they weren’t all smiling at the end of the night, they all had someone to go home with…”

His words halt as Jim twists half around, glaring, eyes violet with anger and the weird bathroom light. “Don’t try to make me feel better. Just fuck me.”

McCoy does. As much as they tease about top and bottom and who wears the pants and all that shit—twenty third century and even liberal guys like them are still fucked up over gender roles—the fact is, he just can’t say no to Jim.

He picks up the pace, grips tighter, thrusts harder, and if the hot water’s run cold as they strive with each other, McCoy doesn’t notice because he’s too busy trying to hold back, shuddering with effort as Jim shivers but doesn’t quite come—at least not until McCoy takes him in hand and strokes, whispers of “mine” and “but you come home with me” and “I know what I want” in Jim’s ear until he finally comes, his arch and shout of release melding his body against McCoy’s. The flush of disparate flesh, the deep clench of Jim’s body, his weak groan—it pulls the doctor over the edge he’s danced on all night, watching his friend and Captain and partner be almost all things to all men-- except for this part. This is his.

His arms are grasping Jim’s waist, the two of them using the wall for support—at least until their knees stop shaking so badly and they both disengage, dissatisfied groans from the both at the disconnection again. A quick rinse and they’re clean—a haphazard swipe of the towel, Jim glaring when McCoy towels the kid’s short, choppy hair just because it looks gorgeous when mussed—and then they’re in bed, lights off, covers up.

Jim’s not so moody that he won’t let McCoy pull him into a spoon—and then he’s curled all around and over the man as he tries and fails to suppress a ticklish chuckle at the way McCoy rubs stubbled skin on that one spot that gets Jim every time.

“Ass,” he says, nevertheless closing one hand over Bones’ wrist, his earlier mood—melancholy’s the best word, coupled with grief—dissolved somewhat, here at the end of their Academy era, the end of so many friends, the end of so many good times before Narada came and changed everything over and done.  
  
It’s a new beginning tomorrow before they shove off first thing the day after, and despite how selfish someone might think it sounds, McCoy wouldn’t change a damned thing. It’s nothing to do with metaphysics or maths or all that alternate universe shit that still has them all in a spin—it’s just that—those doors closed, new ones opened, and the future’s still subject to change. He’s trying hard to look forward—he wants to, Jim’s fault—inspiration, whatever. 

“The JP said we could come by any time after eleven hundred tomorrow, she’d make sure she got to us right away,” Jim says, bringing their intertwined hands up to place four chaste kisses on four surgeon’s knuckles.

He’d wondered—Jim hadn’t said yes, much less said anything about making arrangements, and McCoy hadn’t pressed, knowing Jim was twitchy on the subject to begin with and was worried about today coming off without further disaster. But the agreement implied in his already contacting someone about making it formal is all McCoy needs.

He doesn’t do sappy stuff- much. Or at least he’ll deny it. So he doesn’t say good, much less thank you or thank God, and he doesn’t promise that he’ll always try to make Jim happy—though Jim knows, or he wouldn’t say yes. Instead, McCoy says “I’m done with my meeting at ten thirty, I’ll come back and get changed and we can go to City Hall after that.”

Jim’s “Fine,” is just that. And while maybe they ought to invite some of their friends, reach out to family, he doesn’t want to and Jim doesn’t either. It’s always been the two of them when everything else is all said and done—just like it was when they beat everyone else to Sheila’s tonight, then saw them get on their way home.

“I’ll always come home with you, Bones,” Jim says into the quiet. At that promise, McCoy speaks.

“Home’s wherever you are, you moron. I hate space.”

Jim laughs and rolls over, kisses McCoy until they’re both breathless and grinning.

It’s a good way to begin.   
  



End file.
